The Penguins of Madagascar Review/Transcript
King Julien: Quick! Pinch me! Now bite me! Now slap my face and spank my red bottom! (Intro) Alright, so we've gotten to the first of the DreamWorks trio of Nicktoons, Penguins of Madagascar! Oh, I'm sorry, The Penguins of Madagascar''. ''Penguins of Madagascar ''was the spinoff movie. ''The Penguins of Madagascar ''is the television show. Uh, which makes this show actually rather difficult to look up, or at least moderately annoying cause I keep getting search results for the movie. But that's neither here nor there, and it's not something you can blame the show for, which I'm going to keep calling ''Penguins of Madagascar ''because it flows better in a script. So I'm just gonna come right out and say it, but, this show is actually really good. Like...surprisingly 'good. I remember catching a few episodes of this show when it was on the air, but I have to say that this one ''really ''held up. Maybe it's just me. After all, I've been going through the Nicktoons and, let's say the late 2000s of Nickelodeon was...in a pretty bad place. If you've been following along, you've probably seen that I've been quite a bit down on them. Let me put it this way: ''Penguins of Madagascar ''is the only 2000s Nicktoon, that aired after 2005 that I actually like. And the 2010s starts us off with ''Planet Sheen. After The X's ''and ''Mighty B! and El Tigre ''and ''Tak and the Power of Juju...and well, let's just say et cetera or else I'm gonna be listing them all. It's a breath of fresh air to experience a show as genuinely funny and charming as this one, and that's surprising on multiple fronts. Not only did this show come out right smack dab in the middle of Nickelodeon's darkest age, but it was also based on a movie; a movie that didn't even have the best reception. I remember watching Madagascar ''like, more than once growing up, but I literally remember nothing about the movie itself. So I have to assume that it's probably mediocre. Although from what I can tell, consensus is split right down the middle. Some people say that ''Madagascar ''is one of DreamWorks' good franchises, and some say that it's one of their bad ones. Let's just say it's no ''How to Train Your Dragon. It's...no Shrek ''either. It's a weird franchise for DreamWorks to want to make into an ongoing series to be honest, considering it's not like, the most profitable thing that they've ever done. Who knows, though, maybe they saw ongoing story potential and that was the reason they wanted to make this show. But that'd be silly! Studio heads making products for art and not for business? That'd be ridiculous! I will have to say though that the animation of the show itself can be kind of lacking. Or at least it feels that way. When you go from a big budget CGI movie to a television budget CGI show, you can ''really feel it in the motions and the expressions. The penguins themselves look and move fine which is one of the many smart reasons to have the show star the penguins. It's because they have sleek bodies and it's understandable to make them look like plastic. The problem comes to the animals that have a lot of fur and were shown as "fuzzy" in the movie. The lemurs for instance in this show kinda look...blurry? Because fuzz isn't something you can do on a television budget. At least for the time. Even nowadays, CGI cartoons generally don't show the fuzz on animal characters for a reason. Not only is it more expensive, it's...hard to make it look good. This is a problem that all ''of the DreamWorks cartoons are going to have, not just on Nickelodeon. And it can be really distracting sometimes. Even if you didn't ''watch the movie, it could look a little low-budget here and there compared to a CGI show that was planned from the ground up with a television budget. The show doesn't score too many points for originality either. Penguins are certainly a fun animal to work with, but making them secret agents is...kind of an obvious joke at this point. Runescape, one of the most popular MMOS at the time, had and still does have a side quest series that's all about secret agent penguins. And of course there was Club Penguin with secret agent missions. Kids at the time, definitely would have been on to this gag. But quite honestly...none of this...mattered to me when I watched the show. While I can usually be very hard on cliched premises, and these kind of archetypes that I've seen over and over again, Penguins of Madagascar ''is just so...earnest and charming. It's hard to describe. The show envelops itself in secret agent cliches to a ridiculous degree, and it gives it its own unique style and flare. It's...really hard to describe. It's kinda like a less serious ''Kids Next Door...where the characters take the situations they come across as...more seriously. If that makes any sense at all. I suppose one thing that does help me forgive some of the unoriginality, is that it's...quite close to a spy show. A genre that isn't used too much in cartoons...and has never been done before on Nickelodeon, barring spy parodies like you'd see on say, Jimmy Neutron. And I guess The X's ''if you count that. I don't count ''The X's, we don't count The X's, we never talk about The X's ''again, it doesn't exist. Every time the penguins' spy theme started playing, I couldn't help but get invested in what kind of crazy maneuvers that they'd do. Speaking of charming, these characters fit the bill in spades. They translate to the episodic format really well. There's Skipper, the leader. He's always got a plan and always knows the mission. But he's not like other leader characters, he's not egocentric or megalomaniacal. He's willing to set aside important business to let his team have fun once in a while. It's...really nice to see. The others are just as good. Kowalski isn't just the nerd egghead. There's a bit of personality to him. Rico isn't just the idiot either. You know, he avoids the trap of the stupid character just doing whatever, cause "lol, stupid." For instance, his stupidity actually doesn't get anyone hurt. At least anyone who he doesn't mean to hurt, and when he's willing to do so, it's usually justified. And then of course there's Private, the softer little brother character that has a charm ''all on his own. His focus episodes and scenes can get...surprisingly heartwarming. That's another thing, this show can get surprisingly heartwarming. It's not "Last of the Starmakers," but episodes like the one where the penguins are taking care of an egg, are a ''surprisingly ''good watch. And the show is actually really funny. There's a great variety in terms of its comedy. A lot of it is physical, as you'd expect a show about penguins to be, but there's a lot of verbal comedy and one-liners, that never feel very corny. It was rare that there was an episode that I didn't laugh at least once Private: 'Skipper!!!! '''Skipper: '''What kind of sick and twisted toy factory is this?! A lot of this comes from the voice acting. These actors seem to be ''in love with their roles. As far as I know it's not the same actors as the ones from the movies, but some people ''really ''wish that they were, because they feel more fitting than the movie's voice actors. There are other characters too and they're...alright. They tend to make good setups for plots, but don't get much beyond that. With the exception of King Julien. King Julien is a...difficult character to tolerate. Like, he can be a ''really ''difficult character to tolerate. Most of the problems in the show are caused by him, and that could easily get on your nerves. Especially because he's a ''really, really'' ''arrogant kind of character. I do think he has enough moments of, pardon the pun, but, "humanity" about him, to make him not irredeemable. I think the biggest issue I have with him is the voice. It's a very annoying one, and it can be hard to understand at times. He also tries to sing. Emphasis on "tries." And he does it way too much. And by "way too much," I mean more times than zero. A character singing badly can ''work as a joke, but you 'can't give us the whole song 'when you do that. And music...is...one of the things that King Julien likes. The most. The stories can also be a little bit cliche, but I-I do think that's okay. If you're able to do the cliches ''really ''well...and this show ''does ''do cliches really well, you can rise above all of that and make something surprisingly unique. And that's what this show is: it's a surprising amount of fun, and it's a show that I'm probably going to watch the rest of the episodes when I have more time. Like ''CatDog ''put me in a bad mood whenever I watched it, this show put me in a good mood whenever I watched it. And it's ridiculous to think that it's 'this show' that did it. ''Penguins of Madagascar,'' of all things. I can only hope the other DreamWorks cartoons have ''just as much effort put into them. So what's next? 'Announcer: '''Next on Nick, it's- ''(Shows clip of Fanboy and Chum Chum theme song) Oh goodie! I-I'm just, gonna go die now. (End Credits Theme: "Me and My JJ" from the episode "Hard Boiled Eggy") Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts